


Face chAngE

by StarFlatinum



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Confusion, Crack, Don’t Examine This Too Closely, Gen, OOC Basically Everyone, i guess, layers, nobody cares about Yammy, what even is this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:06:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27772729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarFlatinum/pseuds/StarFlatinum
Summary: The rescue party disobeyed direct instructions from the Captain Commander himself to save Inoue Orihime from Aizen’s dastardly clutches.  It’s too bad they missed one very important detail…
Relationships: Aizen Sousuke & Ulquiorra Cifer, Ishida Uryuu & Confusion, Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Ichigo, Ulquiorra Cifer & Inoue Orihime
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Face chAngE

**Author's Note:**

> Since I lost my notes for the long-term projects I’ve been working on (nuuu mah thesis _sobs_ ), I continue to write cracky oneshots. I always imagine that the proper, stuck-up glasses characters have the most irreverent internal monologues, so that comes out here and the world gets to experience the glory that is Ishida Uryū dropping swears.

Not for the first time, Uryū wondered how they’d ever thought they were prepared for Hueco Mundo.

The first reality check was Nel’s merry band of misfits, because obviously Uryū needed nothing more than _another_ devastating blow to his worldview. Was there a bargain sale on existential crises too? But of course, the revelation that was the existence of _friendly Hollows_ couldn’t be the end of it. As if to counterbalance Nel’s (relative) innocence, they had to run into the fount of depravity that was Szae- Szayelp- _Szayelaporro_ Granz, whose name Uryū couldn’t even pronounce in his head without wanting to hurl. And to think they were saved by Kurotsuchi of all people.

At the thought, Uryū considered actually vomiting. Only the urgency of the current situation dissuaded him from doing so.

Speaking of the current situation.

With a little help from Kurotsuchi’s gadgetry ( _hurgh_ ), Uryū dropped that Yammy buffoon down a big hole and proceeded with Inoue to the top of Las Noches. Because apparently, for whatever reason, now Kurosaki was the one who needed rescuing. Whoop-de-doo, this was Uryū’s life now.

Scratch that. Kurosaki was _fucking dead_.

 _This_ was Uryū’s life now.

He talked a good game and he liked to think he could back it up fairly well, but when his volley of arrows just bounced off the bored-looking Hollow who’d casually blasted a hole through Kurosaki’s chest, Uryū realised just how far out of his depth he really was. So deep that the entire ocean seemed to press down from above— or no, that was just this Ulquiorra monster’s reiatsu. One thing led to another, and shortly Uryū found himself down a hand and being slapped silly by a scrawny tail attached to a similarly scrawny condescending prick. What do you even do against a guy like that?

Evidently you get back up. That’s what Kurosaki did, at any rate. With a massive hole through the middle of his chest and a diabolical bone mask forming on his face. When it rained, it poured, and it was raining the whole damned ocean.

Kurosaki, or the Hollow that was left of him, summoned his sword with telekinesis because why the hell not. He proceeded to roar and not use the sword to any effect whatsoever, deflecting Ulquiorra’s Cero Oscuras with a blast that looked suspiciously like a Cero as well. That couldn’t be right.

Based on the look of shock on Ulquiorra’s face, he agreed.

And again without using his sword, Hollow Kurosaki went on the offensive. Quicker than a blink, he grabbed his opponent’s wrist and let momentum do the rest; the only thing that kept it uncomfortable to watch rather than downright gruesome was that the movement was basically too fast to follow. Now Ulquiorra was down a hand as well, and Uryū took great vindictive pleasure in the fact that it was the same hand he’d lost. Karma, bitch.

A spike of shadow erupted from the bleeding stump and materialised into a fresh hand.

“My greatest power is not offense, but regeneration,” Ulquiorra droned in a bored monotone, which was just great because apparently he was a) functionally invincible and b) starting to monologue. Uryū wanted to slap his hands over his ears, but since _he_ still had one missing (a hand, not an ear), he settled for a groan and a liberal dose of tuning the bastard out.

He felt more than saw the spear of energy take shape, and tuned back in right on time to hear, “If possible, I’d like to avoid firing this at close range.” That sounded like a great cue for Uryū and Inoue to run like hell. If Kurosaki had any brains, though, he would close in; he had the speed for it.

Much to his chagrin, Uryū had to keep Inoue from closing on the fight, while Kurosaki just tilted his head and let the lightning spear miss by millimetres. Off in the distance, the desert made its complaints known; Uryū intensely sympathised.

“It missed,” observed Ulquiorra. “It really is difficult to control.” He gave no indication that he had been even remotely inconvenienced; another lance formed in his off hand.

Or no, wait, it was one of his on hands; Kurosaki still had the off one, for whatever reason. Oh, to have a spare… To get his mind off the pain and blood loss, since the haemostatics and anaesthetics he’d swiped off of Kurotsuchi were slacking on the job, Uryū deliberately focused on the more urgent matter at, er, hand. “He can just keep firing those off?”

While Uryū screamed internally and railed a bit more externally at the unfairness that was incarnated in the Espada before him, Kurosaki moved once more. He was, if possible, even faster than before; in the brief moment before any of those present could adjust to him just being over there now, with no transition in between, Kurosaki decided it was a good idea to return Ulquiorra’s hand.

By yeeting that fucker like a horrifically deformed discus, naturally. Which led to the gloriously absurd instant in which Ulquiorra swatted his own airborne appendage with the zappy spear. “You thought you could distract me with something like that?”

Kurosaki didn’t respond. Ulquiorra sure was lucky his opponent took several seconds at a time to stand in place and stare angrily into the far distance.

The silence failed to impress the Espada. “Don’t look down on me,” he demanded, and swung his spear.

Spear met hand, and yes, Uryū was a little more fixated on hands than was probably prudent but he had an excuse, okay? Ulquiorra’s spear picked a fight with Kurosaki’s hand, and the hand won. Kurosaki ignored his wide-eyed opponent’s previous edict and looked down on him. Though his mask hid his expressions, Kurosaki’s reiatsu left nothing to the imagination. Finally he swung his blade.

Cut cleanly from shoulder to hip, Ulquiorra fell to the ground with a quiet “Damn it.” He continued to mumble deliriously as Kurosaki set a foot on his head and charged a Cero between the horns of his terrible mask.

“I reject.”

A flash of orange light engulfed Kurosaki’s mindless form, emanating from four points around him. Within the tetrahedral barrier that snapped into existence around him, Kurosaki froze like a snapshot in time, along with a fine sliver of the surface of Ulquiorra’s face.

“That’s quite enough of that,” came a jarringly chipper voice from behind Uryū.

For the umpteenth time, he felt the powerful urge to scream out his confusion until he coughed blood. Uryū shoved that urge down as deep as he could in favour of asking, “Inoue? What the hell are you doing?”

“Why?” Ulquiorra seemed equally confused, at least. “I lost to him. I no longer have any meaning. Why would you save a defeated enemy?”

“Don’t be silly,” Inoue tutted, strolling casually forward. “I haven’t saved you. See this?” Two more points of light flew toward the downed Hollow. “ _This_ is saving you.

“Sōten Kisshun. I reject!”

Uryū exchanged glances with the dumbfounded Espada and came to the only conclusion that made sense. “You’re not Inoue,” he said to the girl beside him. “Who are you and what have you done with her?”

“Oh?” When she turned to face him, the impostor’s face bore Inoue’s familiar guileless expression, but surely Uryū wasn’t imagining the deranged twist at the corners of her lips. “You really think Inoue Orihime exists? An ordinary human with nonsensical powers that trespass into the realm of gods? A girl who never tries to call her crush by his given name? A high school student who thinks parfait over rice is fit for human consumption? There were so many hints. I thought you were smarter than this, Ishida.”

Impossible. Inoue’s entire existence couldn’t be a lie; she was too well integrated into the social fabric of Karakura. No mere fabrication would have so much shared history with so many people. It didn’t make any sense… but at the same time, it did, in a way that the paradoxically… er, eccentric girl never had. And in a way, it didn’t matter.

“Whether or not the Inoue I know exists, it seems you’re not her,” Uryū decided, forming his bow and standing as straight as he could. “I’ll figure that out later; what I need to do now is simple. I just need to beat you.”

She laughed at him. She actually looked him in the eyes and _laughed_. “You? Beat me? You’re starting to sound like Kurosaki.” The impostor wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. “But I thought you needed two hands to be an archer.”

Not bothering to reply, Uryū grasped the radiant bowstring in his teeth and pulled. The enemy who wore Inoue’s face spread her arms wide.

“Oh? You’re really going to shoot me?” she asked almost sincerely. “All my fairies are busy, so I’m defenceless, right? To think you would do such a thing!” Her tone turned more blatantly derisive, and a decidedly un-Inoue-like smirk split her face. “What _ever_ shall I do?”

“Die,” Uryū suggested, loosing his arrow in the process.

The shot flew unimpeded through the empty space that the impostor should have occupied, and a fist drove into the young Quincy’s kidney from behind; if he survived this, he’d be pissing blood for weeks. Something in his spine felt misaligned too, which seemed like a slightly more immediate factor to his chances of walking away from this fight. “I don’t think so,” the impostor murmured in his ear.

Without missing a beat, Uryū spun on his heels and lashed out with a blade of blue light. Unlike the previous arrow, the Seele Schneider found flesh.

The impostor flashed back a few metres, grimacing slightly. She’d noticed the Quincy weapon in time to dodge the brunt of the slash and avoid a fatal wound, but a fine cut struck across her abdomen, staining the surrounding fabric red with blood as if on fresh snow. False Inoue was on her guard now, taking a fighting stance for the first time, though the twist of her torso further tore the rend in her clothing.

Uryū was distracted by the sudden heat in his Seele Schneider’s handle. It seemed almost like it had been overloaded, but the density of reishi that would be necessary to accomplish that in one shallow strike was unimaginable. He swallowed the blood welling in his throat (internal bleeding was just the worst) and scrutinised his opponent warily.

Black markings showed through the gap in fabric across the impostor’s belly. He examined them, and they glared back accusingly, but the gap was too small to determine what they were.

False Inoue followed Uryū’s gaze and regained her smirk. “Like what you see, little boy?”

Uryū wanted to splutter in indignation, to bum rush her, _anything_ , but by this point he was dead on his feet and could really use a bit of rest. The blood loss, the pain— oh, did he have a broken floating rib now? Wonderful. When did that happen? Lost for a moment in his self-assessment, he almost missed the impostor’s next move, but it wasn’t an attack. She tore the hole in her dress wider still, and he had a whole new reason to splutter.

The protest died on his lips as he took in the single numeral in a familiar Gothic typeface.

0\. Zero, zip, nada. La Cero Espada.

What the _fuuuuuck_?

False Inoue giggled, and Uryū realised he’d said that out loud.

“You pretend to be the calm and rational one in your little party, but you’re so much more interesting when you lose your composure,” she informed him conversationally, like he was just dropping by for tea and a spot of lifestyle advice instead of draining blood and sanity from his body at a frankly alarming rate. “It’s still immature, but I’ve always seen a bit of myself in you. Such a shame that we could never stand on the same side.”

Uryū raised an eyebrow and tried to regain his composure despite his unsteady legs. “Yourself?” He angled his wounded left arm toward his adversary and stowed several more Seele Schneider in his right sleeve.

The impostor mirrored his expression. “Your despair is still incomplete? That’s also interesting, though.” She paused and held out a hand in a stopping gesture, toward Ulquiorra— damn, he was already on his feet, Uryū hadn’t noticed at all. He took a bit of comfort in the sheer bewilderment written across the Tres Espada’s normally blank face. “No need for you to interfere; I have this in hand. Shun’ō, Ayame, let’s get to work.”

Ulquiorra’s reluctance was clear, but he obediently stood down as the two fairies that had healed him flitted to his apparent superior. He alternated between watching her and eyeing Kurosaki with almost comical trepidation.

Seeing as his strength was only waning, Uryū had to make a move soon or not at all. Nothing for it, then. He turned his body and flung two Seele Schneider from his sleeve, lighting the blades as the grips passed his fingertips. The impostor’s fairy minions moved to intercept.

From what Uryū knew, Inoue’s fairies were highly specialised. Three to reject incoming effects, two to reject something contained in their field, and one to reject the bonds holding a target together. In hindsight, he should have noticed that they had already deviated from these roles when they contained Kurosaki, but he still failed to anticipate quite how easily the two healers deflected his hastily launched projectiles. They whizzed neatly past their target without so much as ruffling her hair.

“I have to admit, I didn’t think you would have this much fight left in you,” the false Inoue commented. “You continue to surprise me.”

Uryū gritted his teeth and more or less emptied his sleeve in a glorified flailing motion, hurling three more glowing blades. “I’m the one who should be surprised.” This time a barrier snapped into place, reflecting the projectiles in a spread. The centre one embedded itself in the ground at Uryū’s feet, coming uncomfortably close to costing him another appendage.

The impostor grinned cheekily. “You know, some people say that repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.” She let out a small, amused huff. “I guess you’re more of a madman than I thought.”

Uryū laughed too, a harsh and grating sound that aggravated the fractured rib and sent him into a brief coughing fit. When he recovered, he noticed the impostor eyeing him oddly and reveled in her bemusement.

“There are several problems with that assertion,” he said, struggling and failing to keep the wobble in his legs from spreading to his voice. “One: anybody who defines insanity like that is in sore need of a dictionary.” He fell to one knee and caught himself on the handle of the Seele Schneider in front of him before his face could introduce itself to the ground. “Two: I didn’t do the same thing; the second throw had fifty percent more ammunition. And three:” He looked up, locking narrowed eyes with the fortunately patient impostor, and made use of the fact that he had only _more or less_ emptied his sleeve.

Pouring the entire contents of a full Gintō over the artefact supporting his weight, Uryū made his final point. “Sprenger.”

The impostor’s eyes, which had narrowed to match Uryū’s, blew wide an instant before a flare of cyan energy engulfed her.

Uryū shifted from an unsteady kneel to almost a sprinter’s crouch and squinted into the light. This wouldn’t be enough. He waited until his target’s silhouette showed faintly through the glare before bracing himself and dashing into the tempest of reiryoku as fast as his unsteady body allowed.

This was his last shot. His final Seele Schneider, the one he’d used to cut the impostor, the one overloaded with power, blazed bright in his hand. It would leave second-degree burns at least, but that was better than the alternative. If this one mad rush failed, he wouldn’t have enough gas left in the tank for another try. He swung his arrow like the sword it resembled and roared from the depths of his soul, a cry of pain and frustration, of _one more second, just hang on dammit!_ Every fibre of his being went into that one slash.

A fine crescent of orange caught his last, desperate assault and held strong.

“Very good,“ the impostor praised him, and disgust curled in his belly. “You’ve run all the way up to your limit, not just through tenacity like Kurosaki does, but with your mind. You figured out the closest thing to a path to success based on the facts you had available to you. That’s marvellous. But it’s as far as you go, I’m afraid.”

The Seele Schneider flared and crackled. Uryū yelped, fearing that his opponent would take this moment to deprive him of his last weapon, but a shock seemed to run through her shield, and somehow through her though there was no physical contact.

Except that there was. The shield flickered like static and Uryū thought he saw a sword in its place, connected to the equally flickery impostor by a one-handed grip.

“I repeat,“ Uryū panted as reishi flooded into his weapon and tore at his skin, “what the _fuck_?”

“Still full of surprises, I see,” grunted the impostor, her voice oddly doubled. “I didn’t think you would be able to disrupt my illusion with something as simple as a vibrating sword.”

“It’s an arrow,” the young Quincy snarled. The words became a hiss of pain as his charred skin gave way. Said arrow dropped to the ground, handle glowing red-hot with cracks of molten orange. Uryū’s vision blurred so he couldn’t see the damage clearly, but as a doctor’s kid he could make a fair guess as to the condition of his remaining hand based on the fact that the flesh seemed to be bubbling.

He tried to say something along the lines of, “How much reishi did it take in to overheat this much?” Unfortunately the cocktail of agony from his wounds catching up to him, combined with the blood rising in his esophagus, distorted his question into something more like “Haaargh uwoooh urrrrryargh.” Uryū crumpled sideways and was sorely tempted to remove this hand from his body so it could join the other one in whatever better place hands went to when they died.

Probably Hueco Mundo, with his luck.

The impostor regained her composure, and maybe her clarity of form, though again, Uryū couldn’t exactly see clearly. “You already caught a glimpse of it, I suppose, and you won’t live to tell anyone, so I may as well show you the rest,” she said. Her voice still had that layered quality to it, though it didn’t sound doubled as Uryū had originally thought; the second layer sounded different, and if he wasn’t mistaken, eerily familiar. “Out of respect for you, the Quincy child who pushed me further than seasoned captains could ever manage, I’ll open your eyes to the _truth_ of this grand comedy.” She laughed at a joke Uryū strongly suspected was at his expense.

If he’d been able to move, he would have frozen at the impostor’s next words:

“Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu.”

Through the pitch darkness encroaching on the edges of his vision, Uryū forced his eyes to focus, to deny the truth in front of him. But what good was that against an enemy who could make him see literally anything?

Before him was no longer the shape of the one Uryū had thought his ~~friend~~ ally. Before him, newly chipped zanpakutō in hand, stood Aizen Sōsuke.

With a herculean effort, the soon-to-be-deceased Quincy managed to impart unto the universe one final truth of his own, something so crucial as to swell with the worth of his dying breath. “This’s bullshit,” he groaned.

“Well, it’s time we got to work,” he became distantly aware of his enemy saying. “Let us join our friends in the Jūreichi. I’m sure Tsukishima tires of doing my dirty work, and I doubt he can impersonate me indefinitely.”

“… Yes, Lord Aizen,” sounded a most likely traumatised Ulquiorra’s utterly numb-sounding voice. Numb like Uryū’s everything, if he was honest.

The blurry shape that was Aizen raised its long blurry pointy bit. “Goodbye, Ishida Uryū,” the blur said. And then the swo  
…

**Author's Note:**

> What was the point of that? Was there any point? I have no freaking clue. All I know is that I wasted far too much willpower refraining from sticking a “do you need a hand?” joke in this.
> 
> I cannot believe I spent an hour of my life and over three thousand words on this.


End file.
